When inserting, tightening, or securing fasteners or hardware, it is desirous to control the precise amount of torque being delivered in many situations. This is of particular concern in surgical and medical procedures where application of excessive force can damage or destroy the hardware, or injure the patient. Such injury could have catastrophic consequences, especially when working with spinal and skeletal structures and related devices. Accordingly, drivers have been developed to limit the amount of torque delivered to the driven object or device.
However, improperly calibrated or tensioned devices can also do damage if too much torque is delivered or, conversely, will be ineffective if the tension in the device is too low. Moreover, difficulties and inaccuracies are multiplied when working parts of a tool become worn, or do not provide a consistent transferable torque after several uses. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a torque-limiting driver operable to consistently and accurately deliver a maximum selected torque amount.